Dante Fascell

Dante Bruno Fascell (9 March 1917-28 November 1998) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-FL 4) from 3 January 1955 to 3 January 1967 (succeeding Bill Lantaff and preceding Syd Herlong), from FL 12 from 3 January 1967 to 3 January 1973 (succeeding William C. Cramer and preceding J. Herbert Burke), from FL 15 from 3 January 1973 to 3 January 1983 (preceding Clay Shaw), and from FL 19 from 3 January 1983 to 3 January 1993 (preceding Harry Johnston). The longtime congressman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom shortly before his death from colorectal cancer in 1998, and the Port of Miami was also named after him.

Biography
Dante Bruno Fascell was born in Bridgehampton, New York in 1917, and his family moved to Florida in 1925. He served as a US Army lieutenant during World War II, serving in the African, Sicilian, and Italian theaters of the war. In 1950, Fascell was elected to the State House as a Democrat, and, in 1954, he was elected to the US House of Representatives to represent Dade County. He would serve in the House for 38 years, and he refused to sign the racist Southern Manifesto of 1956, supported and later opposed the Vietnam War, cosponsored the War Powers Act of 1973, won aid for Cuban-Americans who settled in his district, and championed the creation of Biscayne National Park. He retired in 1993, and he turned down Bill Clinton's offer of naming him ambassador to Italy due to his diagnosis with colorectal cancer. Fascell was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, and he died that same year. The "Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami" in Miami is named for him.